Soshite Sannin ga Ita
by kaliawai512
Summary: Malik coming to visit them was odd. Malik coming to visit during the winter was strange. Malik taking them on an outdoors trip in the dead cold was just stupid. Yuugi, Ryou and Malik go camping. What could possibly go wrong? Post-canon. Non-romance.


**I ****like ****to**** call**** this**** "****the**** camping**** story****"****!**** … ****sort**** of.**** This ****is**** written ****for**** PurpleWildcat2010,**** who**** gave**** me**** the**** original**** idea.**** I**** have ****no ****idea ****if**** it****'****s**** anything**** like**** she**** was **_**thinking**_** of**** when**** she**** gave ****me**** the ****idea,**** but**** this**** is**** what**** happened ****when**** I**** started ****writing.**** And**** believe ****me,**** this**** was**** a**_** ton **_**of**** fun.**

**This ****is**** post-canon, ****by**** a ****few**** months,**** and**** completely**** non-romance.**** Mostly ****this**** is ****humor,**** but**** it****'****s**** fairly ****difficult**** for ****me ****to ****have ****pure**** humor ****without**** some**** contemplation,**** so ****expect**** a**** bit**** of**** that**** as**** well.**** For ****some**** reason,**** I**** really ****liked**** the**** plot**** bunny**** "****What**** happens**** when ****the ****hikaris**** go ****camping?****"****,**** regardless ****of**** how ****little ****sense ****it**** makes.**

**And**** believe ****it**** or**** not,**** I**** actually ****did**** my ****research.**** In**** December**** of**** 1997 ****in**** Japan,**** it**** was**** usually**** between**** -3**** and**** 1.5**** degree(s)**** C**** (26.6-35.7****F),**** and ****in**** November, ****it**** was**** between**** 3.8**** and**** 9 ****degrees**** C**** (38.8-48.2****F).**** This**** takes ****place ****in ****very ****early**** December**** (which,**** also**** confirmed,**** had**** relatively ****little**** snow**** early ****in ****the ****month).**** And**** believe**** it**** or ****not,**** I****'****ve ****been**** camping ****in**** similar**** weather.**_** It**__** is**__** very**__** cold.**_

"**Itadakimasu" is a Japanese ritual phrase used before eating, literally meaning "I humbly accept." It has no English equivalent.**

**I tried to go out of my way to avoid making this similar to "Night at the Museum" by Kohaku no Hime (great story, by the way). However, considering we were working from the same concept, given to us by the same person, and I had read her fic before I even thought of this one, I want to just go ahead and say that any similarities are unintentional. I do not mean to steal ideas.**

**Anyone ****who**** can**** pick**** up ****the ****two ****dub ****references**** gets**** a ****cookie.**** They****'****re**** not**** exactly ****hidden**** (in**** fact,**** for**** those**** familiar**** with**** the ****dub, ****it**** might**** be**** quite ****obvious).**** I **_**tried **_**to ****think**** of ****something ****else ****to ****put**** in**** those**** places,**** but**** I**** simply**** couldn****'****t.**** It**** was**** the**** only**** thing**** that**** worked.**

**Oh, and for the record, Ryou actually does act whiny. I checked. Don't get me wrong, I love Ryou to death, and he's a selfless sweetheart when it comes down to it. Most of the time, in very early Duelist Kingdom, late Duelist Kingdom, and Battle City, who we're seeing is Yami Bakura, so it's tough to tell, but in mid-Duelist Kingdom, he ends up complaining fairly often. He's still kind, loving, and unfortunate. But check Episode 28, Japanese version. It's … kinda funny.**

**So ****this ****story**** features**** whiny-Ryou,**** socially-confused-and-somewhat-inept-Malik,**** and**** exasperated-peacemaker-Yuugi.**** All**** are ****tentative**** post-canon ****interpretations.**

**The ****title ****translates ****to**** "****And**** Then**** There**** Were**** Three.****" ****Yes,**** this ****is**** a**** blatant**** reference ****to ****my ****favorite**** murder**** mystery**** by**** Agatha**** Christie.**

**Hope you enjoy. And please review!**

**EDIT: The site for some reason decided to really mess up the formatting for this story, so if you notice an error I didn't correct, please tell me so I can fix it.  
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_Soshite Sannin ga Ita_

For some really dumb reason, Malik had decided to visit them right before winter.

He would have just said "odd," because "odd" had come to fit their group and anything they got themselves into—and not as if he would have actually called the reasoning "dumb" aloud. But he had a very strong feeling it had something to do with Malik not remembering that Japan's temperature at this time of year was very different from Egypt's, and his final decision had come out of plane tickets being cheaper when no one else wanted to make the trip. Which wasn't an _entirely_ dumb reason all in itself.

The fact that Malik had arrived in near-freezing weather and suggested they all go camping had yet to show a single logical reasoning yet, and went far beyond the standards of "odd."

The fact that Yuugi had _agreed_ was dumb.

He knew, in hindsight, that he should have just said no. Or maybe come up with some on-the-fly excuse like having to help out at the game shop or get a school project done, even though he had already planned to get his homework done ahead of time and Jii-chan only asked him to work when he didn't have much else to do.

But Yuugi was very bad at lying, and seeing Malik's huge grin upon making the announcement made it very difficult to refuse. After all, despite the unpleasant past they shared, he doubted Malik had ever gotten the chance to go somewhere with a group of friends, and Yuugi didn't see fit to deny him that for the sake of avoiding a little cold.

Okay, a _lot_ of cold.

"Malik-kun, are you _sure _there isn't somewhere a little … _warmer_ we could have gone?"

Yuugi rubbed his arms through the fabric of his school jacket before glancing up at the ever-hesitant voice cutting into the long-held quiet.

The time since they had arrived had passed by in some sluggish yet speedy manner Yuugi could not quite understand. The drive hadn't been long—or maybe it had just seemed short with Malik babbling away, never giving Yuugi the chance to ask if he really did have an international driver's license, or if they were going to get pulled over only to have him show his Egyptian motorcycle permit paired with that big cheesy grin—and after the lengthy hike they had taken from their borrowed car parked on the side of the road, lugging their bags and disassembled tent through brush and trees, Yuugi had a feeling that the relief that had rushed through them all upon long-awaited arrival to a "decent" campsite had fogged his memory of that, too.

He wasn't sure how long they had been sitting in a circle on logs pulled up from nearby. And he really wasn't sure if Malik had not heard the question of the white-haired boy sitting somewhat near him, or if he was just choosing not to answer.

Either way, half a minute later the question was repeated, and this time, it was very definitely ignored.

Of all the people who could have decided to come with them, Yuugi couldn't figure out whether he was surprised or whether he had quite expected Bakura-kun to agree. He had stopped spending every waking moment alone in his apartment, and he had stopped rushing home after school to hide away by himself. He smiled more, spent more time outside, enough to add some color to the pale complexion of his face.

But Bakura-kun and camping somehow still seemed far too dissimilar for comfort. Even Honda-kun had declined the trip, making up an excuse Malik really shouldn't have believed, but took anyway with a smile and an understanding nod. Yuugi supposed that in traditional Egypt, maybe being spontaneously forced to repaint your entire house over a weekend wasn't quite so unusual.

Anzu and Jounouchi-kun had almost come. But both of them had taken up new part-time jobs over the fall, and getting an entire weekend off was more than either of them could spare, particularly for Anzu, as she had yet to be paid back the money Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun had borrowed from her for the plane tickets to Egypt. Bakura-kun had been the only one to immediately say yes—and the first person who, upon arriving and realizing what they had gotten into, had switched his eager grin to a worried bitten lip.

And after so many others had declined, Yuugi supposed, even more so than his inability to lie and the sweet smile Malik _had _to know looked like beggar's, he had agreed to go out of pity. And though he tried so very hard to keep the best attitude he could, it was getting difficult as the temperatures dropped closer and closer to freezing.

He wondered if there really was a weather god, laughing his head off somewhere far away.

And warm.

Yuugi looked up when Malik stood after a long silence and made his way over to the tent they had dumped on the ground but never seen fit to actually put up. Bakura-followed him, and Malik bit his lip fairly obviously at the not-quite-scrutinizing gaze and tried to hide the embarrassment flat on his face.

He knelt and took one the thick metal pegs in his fingers. He looked at it like one might look at a miniature alien from Pluto, twisting and turning it back and forth, and searching for a spot where it might go. He glanced at Bakura-kun rubbing his hands on the other side of the disassembled tent.

Malik stuck out his bottom lip in a half-hearted gesture of defense. "Well, isn't it this cold everywhere in Japan this time of year?"

"Exactly," Bakura-kun muttered in the midst of a sigh. "Maybe we could have camped … another time?"

"You agreed to come!"

Bakura-kun sighed in a manner that Yuugi would never have guessed was his had he not been looking right at him. "I know, but …" He trailed off, and seemed uncertain whether to finish the sentence that he clearly meant to have an end.

"Maybe it won't be so bad, Bakura-kun," Yuugi piped in. He shuffled from his seat and headed toward one side of the tent. He flicked his eyes back and forth between the other two and the tent in front of them, and wondered if it would be better to ask for instructions as to what he should help with or just stand there and hope someone noticed.

He looked at Bakura-kun, and Bakura-kun offered the tiniest hint of a smile and motioned toward one of the metal pegs lying nearby a corner of the tent. Yuugi scrambled over to it and began the awkward process of slipping the peg into a hole in the fabric.

Malik groaned, though whether it was from frustration with them or the tent he couldn't tell. "You both seemed so eager when I invited you!"

Bakura-kun pulled a little tighter on one edge of the tent and stomped a peg in with his foot, much harder than Yuugi would have thought his frail-looking body could stomp. "I didn't exactly know what we were … planning to do."

Yuugi bit the inside of his lip and tried with all his might to offer the optimistic smile that had seemed to grow characteristic of him over the years. "It _is_ the first time the three of us have gotten to just hang out, Bakura-kun."

"But couldn't we have hung out … at _home?_"

Yuugi flicked his eyes up and watched the boy opposite him, currently dusting his hands and shifting to the next peg in the row, while Yuugi had yet to finish his first and Malik didn't even seem to have figured out where in the ground he was supposed to put his own.

On any other day, Yuugi might have been surprised, even stunned at Bakura-kun's furrowed brow and occasional muffled whine, given his usual gentle, submissive demeanor and soft tones. But even Yuugi had to wonder why it was that they had to be out here right now. And the cold was messing with _his_ head enough, and he had more insulation from the spikes of his thick hair. Bakura-kun had a lot of hair, but no hat, and most of it fell down past his shoulders. Yuugi wondered not for the first time if he should suggest looking through their duffel bags for a spare cap.

Malik looked at the peg in his hand, then at his own deflated section of the tent, then at the ground with his front teeth chewing on his lip. He turned his head back and forth between Bakura-kun and Yuugi and seemed to finally notice that Bakura-kun blew on his hands every few seconds as he stomped in another peg.

He swallowed, and this time it was nervous. "… maybe if we put the tent closer to the fire?"

The remnants of the frustrated tint in Bakura-kun's expression faded in an instant, and he offered a smile much more fitting to his face. "It's alright. But, yes, that might be best."

He kicked in the last of the peg he had been working on and shuffled over toward the young Egyptian teen staring at the metal peg with a vengeance.

Yuugi didn't even try to hide it when he leaned over to examine the way Bakura-kun slipped the peg through the fabric loop and drove it slightly sideways into the ground. He glanced at the peg, then at the one in his hand, and thirty seconds later was kicking the top of the peg as far into the ground as it would go. He sighed and glanced up.

"How did you get so good at putting up tents, Bakura-kun?"

Bakura-kun flicked his eyes from where he was now circling the tent, adjusting pegs and slipping thin metal poles through slits and hooking bits of tent fabric to the pegs in the ground and making sure the tent couldn't get be pulled any nearer to the fire without risking it catching aflame. "My family used to go camping together when I was little."

Yuugi stood in full and blinked. "Your family?"

It was like a switch had been clicked on in Bakura-kun's mind. The same switch that had clicked when his frustration disappeared, but this one clicking off the gentle contented face and turning to one of anxiety and the vaguest sense of melancholy that somehow made the shadows from the fire flickering on his face seem much more gloomy. His cheeks went pink.

"Yes … when my dad wasn't on archaeology trips."

Yuugi bit the inside of his lip as he nodded, and he started to wonder if he wasn't losing that intuition Anzu had once so complimented him on. He brushed off his hands with a loud, distracting breath.

"So, does the tent look ready?"

Bakura-kun glanced over the perimeter of the area, at the pegs in the ground and the attached wires and stretched fabric that made up the good-sized blue tent. It looked almost black in the darkness of the evening, and a pale baby blue in the light of the fire, and one or two spots might have been a little crooked or out of place. But Bakura-kun nodded. "Yes, I think that should do it."

"Whew …" Malik stood and straightened himself. He glanced over both of his shoulders and leaned forward and backward as far as his hips would stretch with a hand against his lower back like an old man who had just cracked his spine. "Is putting up tents always this hard?"

Bakura-kun flicked his eyes once more over the tent, still kneeling by one of the closer pegs. A hand balancing him on the ground, he looked up. "You've never put up a tent before, Malik-kun?"

Malik turned his head and waited just long enough for a very slow blink.

"I was raised underground, Bakura. We didn't have tents."

Bakura-kun's cheeks glowed crimson. "Oh … right …"

Yuugi sighed and smiled and shook his head, and the three of them settled themselves back onto the logs surrounding the fire. The smoke tinged the air with a sort of fogginess that might have burned Yuugi's eyes had he not already gotten used to it. Bakura-kun seemed more bothered, and Malik had apparently been around fires enough for them to no longer affect him at all.

Instead, Malik grinned a big, enthusiastic grin that hardly suited someone like himself, and scooted to the edge of the log to snatch up a small plastic bag full of puffy white … puffs. Yuugi quirked a brow and wondered when it was that he had managed to pack those before they left home.

The grin did not once leave Malik's face as he gathered three twigs from the ground, passed out two and kept the third, set the bag on the ground in between them and plucked out one fluffy white marshmallow for himself.

Bakura-kun pulled a marshmallow from the bag and stared at it for a long time, as if interrogating it with his eyes. Apparently it gave a response he found halfway suitable—or at least something he was willing to accept—for a moment later, he shrugged. "Itadakimasu."

He popped it into his mouth and chewed.

Yuugi turned his first marshmallow over in his hand without ever actually putting it on the stick he had been given. He looked at it with a familiarity of knowing far too much about it, and with something that might have been concern, had his empty stomach not insisted that this was "food" nonetheless.

"This doesn't seem like a very healthy dinner."

"Well, we all ate before we left, right?" Malik stuffed a full marshmallow into his mouth and pulled out one more to roast.

Bakura-kun shook his head and stuck his second marshmallow on the stick, examining it with something that might have looked, if not for his soft brown eyes that made almost any expression seem kind, like distaste. "I thought we'd be having something of … substance."

"But this is a camping trip!"

"I thought you said you've never _been_ camping, Malik-kun …"

"I've seen people do it on TV!"

Yuugi chuckled, particularly as Malik struggled with attempting to put the marshmallow on his own stick properly. He bit his lip and scrambled with it like a whale trying to press the buttons on a cell phone, and somehow, the longer Yuugi watched him, the more the motions looked so very familiar. Enough to make something deep within Yuugi twist and ache.

Bakura-kun quirked his head. "What is it, Yuugi-kun?"

Yuugi jolted.

"Hm? Oh, nothing …"

But he knew even before the words left his mouth that "nothing" was hardly a suitable answer to the two boys who, despite not having spent much time with him, knew more than they really should have about his nature of trying to keep secrets, and the kinds of secrets he tried to keep. They turned their heads to face him in full—Malik having given up on roasting his marshmallow and stuffing it in his mouth instead—and it took only a few seconds for Yuugi to sigh and stare in unimaginable depth at the simple white puff cradled in his palm.

"I was just remembering this one time … when I took mou—Atem," the name caught in his throat, and he swallowed to rid himself of the old, not quite bitter taste, "to the beach." He chuckled and smiled, a smile not quite sad, and turned his head up. "He didn't even know what a marshmallow was."

Malik blinked. "Hadn't he been with you for over a year then?"

Yuugi nodded, the smile never leaving his face. Malik's jaw fell open.

"And he'd never had a _marshmallow?_"

Yuugi, for the first time in a very long time, could find no suitable response other than to stare with such obvious blankness few would have believed such an expression could belong to him. "Malik, did _you_ have a lot of marshmallows growing up?"

Malik rested his palms on his knees and leaned forward enough to nearly fall off the log.

"Not in the tomb, but as soon as I got out with Rishid, I tried as many new things as I could!" he nearly shouted. Bakura-kun, closer to him than Yuugi, flinched and glanced around at the sudden noise in his right ear. Malik's eyes had gone wide and eager, like he was staring into an infinite bag of chocolate with every word. "And after Battle City, when we moved in with Sister, I got sweets every week!"

Bakura-kun blinked, turned his head just enough to almost meet Malik's eyes, and clamped his hand over his mouth in terrible vain to cover the snickers which were a good deal louder than Malik's voice in the first place.

Malik spun around. "What?"

"N-nothing, nothing …" Bakura-kun bit back the remainder of his chuckles. "You just didn't strike me as the type to like sweets, Malik-kun."

Malik dropped his angry confusion and grinned a half-grin.

It seemed only a second later—though it might have been a good deal longer—that his grin faded and turned down into a frown.

He shifted on the log as if something had hit him from a distance, something small but hitting deep and sharp, and turned his gaze to the ground.

"By the way …" He swallowed with a kind of nervousness Yuugi had once believed someone like Malik could never display. "I know it's … _been_ a while, but … I wanted to apologize for what happened back in Battle City."

Whatever had hit Malik so out of the blue hit Yuugi as well, with a force perhaps twice as strong. It seemed as if memories much further back than the day he had spent on the beach with his friends and other self flickered anew in his mind. Fresh. As uncertain as when they had first occurred.

Malik bit his lip. "All of it, of course, but … especially right at the end, with that … other side of me. I know just saying 'sorry' doesn't really cut it, but …"

He stopped, and whatever had hit Yuugi dug in deep.

Yuugi reached out a hand and laid it on the empty space of the log beside him. He did not even get close to placing it on Malik's shoulder, but Malik didn't seem to notice any difference between one gesture and another. Yuugi leaned his head to catch the other boy's gaze. "We forgave you a long time ago, Malik." His lips twitched into a smile, not quite as sad as it might have been. "For before, and … what that other side of you did … that wasn't your fault."

"But he came from me," Malik insisted with a voice that seemed to echo about the trees in fervency for what it lacked in volume. He turned his eyes again to the ground. "That makes him part of me."

"He was born from one little part of your mind. He was born from anger."

"He used _my _body, though, to do all those … things." Malik's tone turned to a whisper at the end of "things." But he kept Yuugi's gaze this time, and his violet eyes looked more different, somehow, than Yuugi had seen them in a long time.

Yuugi sighed. "Just because something's done with your body doesn't mean you're the one to blame."

Malik opened his mouth and closed it again as if whatever he had to say no longer felt valid. He didn't smile. But he did not look down, and he did not flick his eyes away when Yuugi let his mouth turn into the faintest hint of a smile.

It seemed both a million years and half a second later that Bakura-kun looked to Malik, then to Yuugi, then to both of them at the same time.

"… you know, if we ever talk like this in public, we're probably going to get ourselves locked up in some asylum."

Malik lowered his eyebrows and turned his gaze to the side. "We do it less than you do, Bakura."

A sigh and a shrug. "I guess I've had more time to convince people to ignore it."

Yuugi tried very hard not to chuckle, as he couldn't quite figure out if right now was a good time to laugh.

He kept his eyes on Bakura-kun, though, and Bakura-kun went back to putting another marshmallow on a stick and roasting it through the still-high flames of their campfire. He made each of his motions with hands that shivered from the cold, but hands that otherwise seemed precise with each of his actions, simplistic as they might have been.

It was an odd thing to realize in a single moment, when he was sure that the change had been slow over the months since it had begun. Images flickered in Yuugi's mind of a boy late the summer of earlier that very year. A boy who curled into himself, stayed quiet, and dared not speak to anyone of the horrors he had endured and finally escaped.

And somehow, when Yuugi's back was turned, he had turned into this. A boy who, on the outside, looked exactly the same, but carried himself with a certainty Yuugi doubted he had ever known before. Not to this extent. And every day improving, growing closer to a goal even he didn't realize he had finally envisioned.

Yuugi allowed himself a grin.

Malik stood up without much of a warning, kicking his legs to stretch them from the long period of sitting and reaching into the air as far as his arms would go.

"I didn't bring a clock, but I think it's pretty late," he half-muttered, and it was difficult to tell at first if he was talking to himself. He settled back to the ground. "We should probably get to sleep."

He took only one step to the side, toward the extra water bottles they had stuck next to their circle of logs, when Bakura-kun reached out a hand and touched his arm. Malik turned and quirked a brow.

Bakura-kun flinched and jerked his hand back. He swallowed, flicking his eyes to the smoldering fire surrounded by rocks that had somehow kept up since they had lit it upon arrival. "Maybe we should leave it going a little."

"Why?" Yuugi leaned forward enough on the log to rest his hands on his knees. He wondered if he had lost the feeling in his legs when he noticed they weren't cold.

Bakura-kun quirked his head. "To ward off predators."

Malik let his arms hang limp at his sides. He blinked.

"You sound like a hunter."

He paused, but a moment later he shrugged in a way most uncharacteristic of one who had once seemed so dominating and uncompromising, and started toward their pile suitcases near the tent. Yuugi chuckled and stood as well.

A few minutes later Bakura-kun had carefully dimmed the flames in the campfire so it was only smoldering, but had enough wood to hopefully burn through the rest of the night. Other than the faint orange glow, there was only the light of the moon and the stars to guide Yuugi as he tossed Malik's night clothes to Malik and Bakura-kun's pajamas to him—only for Bakura-kun to jump and have to bend to gather them up off the ground—and get his own pale blue pants and shirt from the tiny suitcase he had packed for the occasion. It didn't really seem warm enough for the weather, but the rest of his suitcase was full of almost nothing but extra blankets to put over his futon, so he just hoped that would be enough.

He took one step forward, and a moment later, he stopped.

Yuugi stared with his pajamas clutched against his chest. He blinked once, twice, flicked his eyes around the area three times over, then finally looked back to the other two boys a short distance away.

"Um, guys?"

Malik and Bakura-kun looked up. It was almost laughable how innocent Malik looked standing there with a quirked head and wide, curious eyes. "Yes, Yuugi?"

Yuugi took one more look around the site, with the trees and single tent and air so freezing it nearly burned through the fabric of his jacket even now.

"Where are we supposed to change?"

* * *

><p>Bakura-kun was talking in his sleep.<p>

Yuugi had never been aware that Bakura-kun _did_ talk in his sleep before now. He knew Jounouchi-kun did, and fairly often, and usually about cheeseburgers, but Bakura-kun had simply never struck him as the one who would wake him up in the middle of the night to the sound of a faint, muttering voice in the silence of the tent.

"No, Kaa-chan, I want the blue socks, not the red ones …"

Yuugi blinked open his eyes and was met with vaguely tinted darkness.

It was cold. Very, very cold. Granted, he had known that when he went to sleep, but he suspected that it had dropped a few degrees in the length of time before Bakura-kun had woken him. He shifted on his futon, twisting, pulling the blankets all the way up to his chin and tightening his pajama shirt around him. No use. Crud.

A complaining groan. "Amane, you can't wear the yellow hat, it's Tou-chan's …"

Combined with the cold and the fact that he didn't feel like he had slept more than twenty minutes, Yuugi almost wanted to turn around and clamp a hand over Bakura-kun's mouth. But he resisted that urge, and the idea soon struck him as both silly and brief and left him a minute later.

He sighed, flipped onto his side, and pressed his face as far into the pillow as it would go.

"Bakura, you're talking again."

Yuugi blinked—as much as one _could_ blink with their face stuffed into a pillow—and lifted his head.

If it had been anyone else, Yuugi would have just thought he had been imagining things. After all, it wouldn't have been the first time he imagined he heard things that weren't there, and the voice had been quiet, so in any other case, he would have just lain back down and given every bit of his efforts to trying to fall back asleep.

But this _wasn__'__t_ just anyone, and indeed, after staring at Malik with his best probing gaze for several seconds, Yuugi saw him twitch and turn over in his sleeping bag to face his side of the tent.

Malik smirked.

"You can't sleep either, Yuugi?" he asked, and he didn't even try to keep his voice down in the near-silence of the tent—Bakura-kun had gone quiet for the moment, breathing softer and no longer mumbling or groaning.

Yuugi propped himself up on his elbow, staying as much under the covers as the position would allow, and shook his head. "No," he whispered, even though he knew there was no point to keeping down his tone.

"_Kaa-chan, __I__ don__'__t__ want__ the__ pink __elephant,__ it__'__s__ got__ a __funny__ nose!_"

Yuugi—and Malik as well, apparently—just about fell out of their makeshift beds and against the walls of the tent.

Bakura-kun shot up in his sleeping bag, his eyes bloodshot and wide and his breathing suddenly heavy and quick. He clenched the extra sheet he had pulled over him for additional warmth with such fervency that his knuckles went white, and for a few moments, he just panted, staring at the closed entrance to the tent, as if he did not quite understand where he was and how he had gotten there.

There were, of course, a million things that could have been said in a moment like that, some of which involved staring and some of which involved gaping and some of which involved pinching yourself in the arm to make sure you weren't having that weird dream again.

But Yuugi and Malik took the simple route and just stared at Bakura-kun with a kind of silent shock that needed no words and no explanation, as they sat in their beds to either side of him and waited for some sort of indication of what had just happened and whether they needed to worry about what would happen next.

It took nearly half a minute. Half a minute of Bakura-kun adjusting himself to sit properly in his sleeping bag and blinking to remind himself he was awake, and panting as if he had just run half a kilometer fast enough for his shoes to catch fire. His eyes lost their glazed-over look bit by bit, until he finally blinked very hard one last time and turned his head from side to side. First to Malik, and then to Yuugi. Yuugi and Malik stared back.

Bakura-kun gave the most pitifully sheepish grin Yuugi had ever seen.

"Eh-heh, um, uh …"

Strangely enough, of all the things he _could _have said at a time like this, Yuugi found that stuttering was just about the only thing that seemed to fit.

Bakura-kun glanced back and forth between them, at Malik who stared with eyes that seemed both alert and half-asleep from his spot nestled under the covers, and Yuugi, who finally saw fit to sit up, even if it meant losing much of the warmth he might have kept by staying under his blankets. He wondered if there was a good story behind the reason why Malik didn't seem nearly as rattled by the outburst as Yuugi currently felt.

In fact, Malik looked like he could drop dead asleep in two seconds. Yuugi, on the other hand, was beginning to think he might be awake for the rest of the night from the instinctive adrenaline now pulsing through his veins.

But despite his apparent untouched drowsiness, a smirk twitched up the edge of Malik's lips, and he opened his mouth with what Yuugi suspected was one of a million teasing remarks he had built up in his arsenal.

Then Yuugi's eyes flicked over to the translucent blue wall of the tent and flinched.

"Um, guys?"

Malik stopped with the first sound of his first word quite literally hanging off his lips, his mouth wide open like someone had snapped a photo at a particularly inopportune moment. Bakura-kun dropped the tension in his shoulders as he met Yuugi's eyes.

"Hm?"

Yuugi slipped forward just off his futon, onto the small amount of tent space where dirt and rocks poked against the fabric that glowed with only the faint light of the moon and almost pulsed with the life of the darkness. He was suddenly horrendously aware of how much noise he was making. "I think the fire went out."

He turned his head just enough to see Malik sitting up in his sleeping bag, rubbing his eyes and looking even more tired than he had before. It might have been almost comical to see the proud, near-regal Egyptian with tanned skin clammy from sleep, eyes drooping shut and a yawn forcing his mouth open. But Yuugi's heart pounded harder, and he swallowed as Malik looked around with an alarming lack of urgency.

"What time is it, do you think?"

"You said you didn't bring a clock," Yuugi almost hissed, as if he hoped it would get Malik to stop speaking at such a high volume.

Malik blinked and dropped his hand from his eye. "… right."

It wouldn't have been a stretch of imagination to think that Malik could go right back to sleep after that. He looked quite ready to sleep another ten hours or more, and even Bakura-kun had once more been taken to the effects of being woken up—or, rather, waking himself up—in the middle of the night.

And there was a chance Yuugi might have been able to forget the extinguished fire and leave it all be for the night.

If it weren't for the rustling and crunching sounding not far outside the tent.

"What was that?"

Bakura-kun jolted and scampered toward Yuugi's futon, only a twitch away from latching onto his arm. His eyes grew wide, breathing ragged. Yuugi swallowed as hard as he could and bit the inside of his lip.

Malik pushed the top of his sleeping bag off of him. Yuugi once again wondered how it was that someone from a place with such a hot climate could lie around wearing a sleeveless violet shirt and thin gray pajama pants—not to mention the golden earrings he had never bothered to remove—in weather like this. Malik gripped one edge of his shirt and shook his head, almost slow enough to be missed. "Calm down, guys. I'm sure it's just the wind."

Bakura-kun spun to face Malik so quickly his hair nearly whipped Yuugi in the cheek.

"Every time I used to tell myself that, I passed out two minutes later and woke up on the side of the road halfway across town!" he nearly shouted, brow furrowed, straightened, hands squeezed into fists. "It is _not_ just the wind!"

"Shh!"

At any other point, Yuugi would have felt bad when they both turned at his sudden insistence of silence. He might have sunk back and apologized for being so forceful. But he didn't this time. The idea scarcely even crossed his mind. This time, he scooted forward with all the quietness the bottom of a tent would allow and held his breath.

And a few seconds later, he was met with a low rumbling echoing from several meters outside.

Yuugi swallowed, and he felt his heart pound and jump.

"Was that … growling?"

It was difficult to see the look on Malik's face as he shook his head, at first slow, then faster. But the faint, blurry images the minimal light allowed along with the rustling of the fabric as Malik twitched back and forth left very little to Yuugi's imagination.

Malik swallowed loud enough to hear. "No … no way, it's the w—" He froze and swallowed at a distinctive look from Bakura-kun, "—a squirrel?"

The quirked eyebrow Bakura-kun gave Malik very nicely mimicked Yuugi's internal question of in what universe a squirrel could manage to growl.

Malik pursed his lips and forced himself as much to his feet as the tent would allow—which ended up in him standing tall right up to his waist before bending over, his back arched but his head still bumping the fabric of the roof—his expression as determined and brave as one could possibly get in such a position. He met both their eyes and didn't seem to care how much noise he made with the twitching of his feet.

"Fine." He crossed his arms, making him look somewhat like a client at a salon with no chairs, bending over to have his hair trimmed. "If you two just want to stay here, _I__'__ll_ go and see what it is."

Yuugi scrambled forward. "Malik!"

"Malik-kun!"

Their voices didn't dare go above whispers. Hissing whispers, worried whispers, growing to desperate whispers which almost rivaled regular speech as Malik blocked out their cries and unzipped the tent. The buzzing of the zipper broke like glass shattering in the night, and Malik climbed out without a glance in their direction and disappeared into the dark.

Yuugi looked at Bakura-kun. Bakura-kun looked at Yuugi. They looked at one another, and they waited.

Bakura-kun gulped.

"I don't hear anything, Yuugi-kun," Bakura-kun whispered, this time under his breath, but sounding much louder in the blatant silence that surrounded them. There was no shuffling of footsteps, of feet crunching on grass. No voice coming from outside the tent to tell them everything was alright.

Yuugi breathed a shuddering breath. "M-maybe we should go check on him …"

Bakura-kun gave no reply other than to look at him, hesitant, unsure. Every bit of Yuugi's leftover instinct from the days back when he actually had frequent life-or-death situations to worry about told him to stay in the tent. It told him to stay here, where it was safe, where everything was alright. But that instinct was growing stale now, and it was miniscule next to the deeper, older need Yuugi had always felt to make sure his friends were alright.

And he was sure at least one of Jounouchi-kun or Honda-kun would be asking him whether he knew Malik well enough to count him as _that_ good a friend.

And Yuugi would have just sighed.

He reached out a hand that seemed to slice through the silence itself, along with a faint whimper from Bakura-kun. But Bakura-kun did not stop him, or protest, or even move to suggest he go slower. Bakura-kun just sat and waited as Yuugi pushed aside the opening to the tent and poked out his head. And a moment later, before Yuugi's eyes even had time to adjust, he felt Bakura-kun's head poke out next to his.

"Malik?"

His ears adjusted in an instant to the faint, barely audible sounds that surrounded him, and a second later, the sound of ragged, muffled breathing caught his attention. He turned his head just enough to the side to see the tanned Egyptian teenager standing not a meter away from the tent, eyes wide, arms and legs trembling, and stance wide, almost in some sort of defense.

Yuugi furrowed his brow. "Malik?"

But Yuugi's logical mind did not take very long to put two and two together. It pieced things together like a jigsaw puzzle, and he turned his head just as much to the left as it had been to the right.

And suddenly, the faint sounds of shuffling and growling made sense.

He could feel, as his eyes cleared and tried as hard as they could to take in the sight of the mass of moving brown fur walking closer and closer toward their tent, Bakura-kun's head turn to face the same direction. And he could feel—though he didn't know _how_ he could feel—Bakura-kun's mouth drop open and his breath draw in as if to scream.

Yuugi slapped a hand over Bakura-kun's mouth without a second thought.

Instinct—in the sort of situation that health class's segment on wilderness survival had never covered, particularly the sort of situation that involved what looked to be a grizzly bear discovering their campsite—was not the sort of thing Yuugi had had much time to develop. At least not an instinct keen to this sort of problem. So the idea of slipping back into the tent before the bear happened to turn its head and see them and label them its dinner seemed like a very good one, particularly since every second he had his hand over Bakura-kun's mouth, the more it seemed the other boy wanted to scream.

But the first tiny motion they made to slip back into the tent made Malik's head snap toward them and give a frantic expression that froze Yuugi in place. Malik moved quiet, but quick, and motioned toward himself.

In any other situation, Yuugi's first thought would have been that Malik had lost his mind. It wasn't exactly an illogical assumption, given Malik's past incidents of slight insanity and questionable multiple personalities. But somehow, it seemed that he, of all people, probably had more knowledge as to how to deal with a wild bear than most of them, and Yuugi could not give himself one good reason not to reverse his motions and begin to crawl with all possible silence out of the opening to the tent, Bakura-kun close at his heels.

Every movement careful. Every movement uncertain. Every moment thinking it might be his last movement if the bear were to turn its head just enough to catch them in its gaze. No thought of pausing or flinching when his foot met the cold dirt, no thought of grabbing any supplies for defense or survival. No thought except pulling Bakura-kun along with him by the arm and sneaking closer and closer toward Malik.

Yuugi turned his gaze with every bit of caution he possessed behind him, and his eyes met the sight of the bear—did it suddenly look bigger than before?—crawling still closer toward their tent. Its nose turning up to sniff the air, its head turning to each side, though never quite enough to notice the three boys now tip-toeing away from the tent. It paused, and Yuugi and Bakura-kun froze.

And a moment later, it turned, and started steadfast toward the bag of marshmallows near the smothered fire.

If Yuugi hadn't been so concentrated on other matters, he might have screamed out for whoever had left the food in plain sight before bed.

Yuugi drew in a breath, followed by Bakura-kun, followed by Malik. They all met one another's eyes with a sort of silent agreement all of them understood even though they didn't take a second to really think about it. The sound of ripping plastic sounded as the bear tore into its meal, and Malik gave the most decided nod any one of them had ever seen.

And in tandem, they took off and ran.

There was no idea—at least none that Yuugi understood—as to which direction they were running in. There was no thought that walking away might have been a better idea, or that maybe they should have thought about a direction before taking off wherever their fancy pointed them. And right now, Yuugi did not do more than let such thoughts blow through his head before letting them go and racing on into the biting cold wind and the branches that continuously slapped him across the face.

Bakura-kun twisted his head back and forth, flopping his white hair even more than it already flopped from his running. "Is it chasing us?"

Yuugi panted and picked up speed.

"I don't know, I'm not looking back!"

"Someone look back, we need to know if it's still there!"

"Shouldn't we just run?" Malik near-shouted.

"But we need to see if it's there!"

A rustle sounded in the dead grass behind them, and Yuugi forced himself ahead. "Talk later, run now!"

If his middle school gym teacher had been there to see the speed at which Yuugi and his two companions had raced through the woods in the middle of that freezing night, he probably would have retracted every statement he had ever made about "short-legs Mutou." Not to mention probably resigned his job as instructor. And Yuugi would have had little qualms telling him about this later, just to make sure he knew.

But alas, there was no timer, and even if there had been none of them would have cared to start or stop it. They ran. They ran for such a long time that they forgot how long they had been running, and once or twice they almost forgot what they were running from. But then they would remember, and they would run faster, the cold ground stinging their feet through their socks, legs in pajama pants tripping over sticks, and the air of some unimaginable temperature burning the insides of their lungs.

It was only when the most fit of the three—though even with his vaguely muscular build, Yuugi wondered how it was that someone who had spent so much of his life underground could be so in-shape—finally stopped that Yuugi and Bakura-kun followed suit. Skidding against leaves on the ground, almost tripping over their own feet before finally coming to a halt and panting like wild dogs.

"Is it there?"

Yuugi didn't bother to look up at the trembling, timid voice cutting into the mess of sounds and the darkness around him. He put his hands on his knees and sucked in as much air per breath as his body would allow. He managed just enough of his own energy to turn his head back from whence they came.

He shook his head and breathed out before sucking back in. "No … it's gone. Back at the campsite, probably."

It was the sort of thing that, at first thought, seemed like an utter relief. And it was. There was no bear chasing them. No bear chasing them meant they weren't going to die, which, at least in Yuugi's mind, was enough good news for the evening. But as he turned his head back to stretch his neck and catch a bit more breath, he caught just a glimpse of Malik, standing up and flicking his eyes around with a twisted look on his face Yuugi couldn't quite read.

A rustle of crunching leaves sounded next to him that Yuugi assumed was Bakura-kun taking a step. "Malik-kun?"

Though he didn't try to look and confirm it, it was easy to imagine Malik turning around and around on the leaves as if gauging something with his mind. It was easy to imagine him blinking over and over again, easy to imagine his eyebrows furrowing and easy to imagine his curiosity growing to just a hint of dread.

"Does anyone remember which way we went?"

For a moment—just long enough a moment for the true meaning of the words to begin to sink in—silence fell. Yuugi squeezed his eyes shut.

"I was just focusing on getting away from the bear," he panted out, his breath still coming heavy and stinging in his chest. He coughed twice, unsure if something was stuck in his throat or if he somehow thought it would ward off the cold air forcing itself into his lungs. He stood up tall and turned his head left and right.

Trees to the left. Trees to the right.

Yuugi glanced at Malik, and Malik glanced at Bakura-kun. Bakura-kun glanced at Yuugi, and all of them glanced at the trees surrounding them from all sides.

And Yuugi had a million things that might have been suitable to say, but none of them quite fit.

* * *

><p>"E-either of you know the t-temperature?"<p>

"Oh, come on, Bakura, it isn't t-_that_ cold."

"But your _t-teeth_ are chattering!"

"Since when were _you _the argueing type?"

"I'm f-freezing!"

Normally, Yuugi would have given some suggestion long ago that Malik and Bakura-kun focus on something other than pointless bickering at a time like this. And he probably had given some such suggestion some time ago, though it was difficult to remember. But that would have been at least an hour before the present time—whatever time that was—and he had a sneaking suspicion that even if he _had_ made such a suggestion, they had forgotten it by now, just the same as him.

Time had already had instance to turn into a vague sort of thing none of them really kept track of. The only thing Yuugi could remember at this point was specific moments. Like the moment about half an hour into their walking—or had it been a full hour, it was hard to tell—when he had realized, with a kind of quiet relief, that he had indeed remembers to keep the spare key to Honda-kun's lended car tied to the side of his pajama pants.

Or like the moment a good deal after the one hour mark when all of them came to full realization that the reason they could no longer feel their feet was that they had been sleeping in socks, but no shoes.

Such an obvious thing, he supposed, might have been realized a good deal longer if it weren't for Yuugi's theory that the cold was currently freezing out their brains.

Or maybe that was just the frustration of the thought that they were going in circles and getting no closer to finding where they had parked the car.

He rubbed his arms, frantic, though not as frantic as he had been a while ago, and flicked his eyes from side to side, and at all the beautiful, dark, perfectly identical trees that encircled them from all angles.

"Have … either of you seen anything familiar yet?"

Malik swallowed loud enough to be heard and lowered his brow in a scowl that would have looked much more intimidating if he hadn't been shaking. He turned his gaze in a sort of glare to the boy at his side. "_Bakura_ has … what, four times now? Five? Six?"

Bakura-kun groaned. "Oh, let that go, p-please!"

Yuugi sighed and shook his head, though he was quite sure no one could see.

At first, of course, they had taken the obvious path of trying to get back to their campsite. There had been the constant fear of finding the bear still there, or running into it on the way, but the campsite had been where they had been last and presumably what would have been closest, so it had been the obvious first choice.

But as soon as Yuugi had found the car key attached to his pajama pants, none of them had really minded the idea that they would leave their stuff out at the campsite to either be gathered later or left out indefinitely, as the thought of a warm car to sleep in was much more appealing than gathering flashlights or cheap, replaceable sleeping bags.

Locating the car was the task at which they currently found themselves. And honestly, Yuugi was beginning to wonder if cruel fate was watching not somewhere far away, laughing its head off.

He turned his gaze up and drew in a breath as sharp as the temperature of the wind.

"I think that's a road up there!"

Bakura-kun shook his head and rubbed his arms so fast it almost looked to hurt. "Please don't joke, Yuugi-kun, it's far too—"

"No, that's it!" Malik's arm shot out, pointing just through several of the trees up ahead. It was dark, and there were no lights to illuminate it. But just up a hill the grass and dirt turned to something darker. Smoother. Harder. Malik broke into a run. "Over there, come on!"

Logically—even though it had been over a year since Yuugi had been able to think truly logically about anything, given that logic didn't seem to be his best friend—they shouldn't have had the energy to force themselves up the slight hill and through the remainder of the trees to their new destination. And they probably didn't have the energy at all. Yuugi wouldn't have been surprised if they had suddenly gained magical abilities in that one instant, just enough to suck energy out of the air and race forward toward the glimpse of the road.

The air burned in his lungs, and trees branches scraped his face, but Yuugi forgot about all of that when they burst out onto the side of a long road.

Asphalt. Real, black asphalt. With a tall cliff climbing upwards on one side of the road and their woods on the other. Yuugi's lips turned into a grin of pure relief, but two seconds later faded and made way for blinking eyes that flicked side to side in a growing sense of dread.

"Where are we?"

Malik rubbed his arms again and lowered his eyebrows in an expression that almost looked like the scowls he might have given back during Battle City. "How should I know? I don't live here!"

"Neither do we, Malik-k-kun," Bakura-kun added in a voice surprisingly gentle. He turned his head toward the barely-visible yellow stripes on the center of the road and the cliff on the other side of it, no lights either way within any reasonable line of vision. "It's the highway."

"Well, _that__'__s _useful."

Bakura-kun pressed his lips together. "I don't think this is the time for sarcasm, Malik-kun."

Yuugi held back a groan and furrowed his brow. "Maybe if we just walk …"

"_Walk?_" Malik practically spat, in a voice that could have reminded Yuugi dangerously of his darker side had his expression not mirrored horror rather than frustration. He threw his arms out to his sides. "We've been walking for over an _hour,_ Yuugi!"

Yuugi breathed out very slow, and the air in front of him looked like white smoke. "I know, but we have to find the car, and that's our only way to …"

He stopped, and turned his head just enough to the side.

"What's that?"

All three of them, almost in perfect synchrony, turned to the right, and toward the faintest sound of something rumbling. Buzzing. Humming.

Malik leaned forward so much he just about fell face-first onto the asphalt. He blinked and took a step onto the road.

"It sounds like a car."

Bakura-kun's eyes went big. "_Our_ car?"

"Of course not our car, our car can't drive itself! … right?"

"Who would be out here this time of night …?" Yuugi rubbed his hands together, half out of the cold and half out of some nervous instinct he couldn't quite drive away by force of logic. Bakura-kun didn't let go of his wide eyes, and Malik simply leaned further out onto the road, so much that Yuugi wasn't sure whether to pull him back to prevent him getting hit or ask him where he had learned such incredible balance.

Yuugi finally reached a hand out to steady him in his further leaning, and froze in his move.

The night was dark enough to make everything seem foggy, even though there didn't seem to be a cloud in the sky or a tint of fog coating the ground. It was dark enough to warrant the sight feeling particularly eerie as what looked to be a pickup truck—dark blue, black, maybe even red, impossible to tell without light—pulling out into their line of vision, driving slow along their side of the road.

In any other situation, Yuugi might have felt a bit more suspicious of a truck driving along at a speed far below the limit—if there _was _a speed limit this far out on the highway—in the middle of the night. He might have been even more suspicious when he finally realized that the reason the truck was so hard to see was that its headlights were turned off, or perhaps broken, but for whatever reason were not currently operating, shrouding the truck in a darkness that Yuugi really should have found unsettling.

But Yuugi had lived a long enough time surrounded by eerie situations and darkness and shadows that suspicion took second place to cold, and when the truck slowed further and pulled over to stop just in front of them, neither Yuugi nor Bakura-kun nor Malik took a step back in fear.

The window of the passenger side rolled down.

Trying to see the driver of the truck was almost as vain as trying to figure out its color. It was a man, from what Yuugi could tell in the limited light. A man perhaps in his thirties or forties, but perhaps older or younger. He might have been wearing a tuxedo or rags, he might have been blonde or brunette or redhead or even had blue hair for all Yuugi could see in the dark.

But for all Yuugi could see in the dark, blinking, squinting in an attempt to clear his vision, he felt decently sure the stranger was smiling.

He reached out an arm and rested his fingers on the open window. "You kids look cold."

Yuugi glanced over at the other two boys, and Bakura-kun was the first to nod.

"Y-yes, we are."

The stranger leaned in more. "Lost?"

Yuugi breathed out. "Very."

He squinted, and this time he was quite certain that the stranger was smiling at him. He wished more than anything at the moment that he could see more of his face, more of his appearance, or at least figure out for certain whether or not his hair was blue.

The stranger jabbed a thumb behind him.

"Hop in the back. I'll drive you."

Never in his entire life—or at least since earlier that same year—had a single statement left him quite so torn.

Or quite so drowning in his own feeling of muffled dread.

Yuugi opened his mouth, and one of the million questions—there were far too many for him to distinguish which—came to his lips, resting there, quite ready to pounce out and interrogate the strange man that continued to smile at them from the driver's seat.

But his mouth was clamped shut as Malik grabbed his arm and dragged him and Bakura-kun along the road and toward the back of the truck.

And Yuugi simply did not have a fraction of the energy left to protest.

* * *

><p>"You know, it just crossed my mind."<p>

If it hadn't been for the fact that he couldn't feel his fingers enough to get into a more comfortable position, Yuugi would have dozed off long ago. In fact, he would have suspected that the cold air combined with his own lack of rest would have wielded enough force to let him fall asleep even though the metal of the back of the truck was currently digging into the small of his back. Apparently fate—or his own deep-rooted survival instincts—was not so kind.

It took him a moment, like the cold had delayed the travel of sound to his ears, but he jerked up from his slumped position in the back of the bouncing vehicle and swung his head back and forth. His breaths came shallow and quick, and he could hear almost nothing but that and the harsh beating of his own heart for a moment before his eyes and ears adjusted.

Bakura-kun and Malik were apparently not in such drowsy states. Both of them had now taken to staring at him from their respective portions of the pickup. They blinked, almost in perfect synchrony, though Yuugi suspected that was the cold's effect on his brain rather than his distorted senses. He shook his head again, this time in a vain attempt to clear it, and looked at Bakura-kun with blinking eyes.

"Huh?"

"Oh, um," Bakura-kun stuttered, and he paused, glancing around for a few seconds as if he had forgotten what he was going to say. He furrowed his brow, then nodded, then looked back and forth between Yuugi and Malik with eyes wide and almost frighteningly awake. "Right. It just crossed my mind."

Yuugi blinked particularly hard. "What did?"

"That we could have just put ourselves into the hands of some merciless serial killer who's currently driving us to our deaths."

The silence after that—well, silence combined with the rush of the biting wind and the bumping of the truck on the road that _really _needed to be repaved—lasted for longer than Yuugi could remember a lull in a conversation lasting before. Yuugi looked at Malik, and Malik looked at Yuugi, and both of them looked at Bakura-kun.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuugi saw Malik sigh and shake his head. "I'm starting to wonder if this is the leftover effects of housing the lord of chaos in your soul, or if that's just how you always were."

Bakura-kun looked at the floor of the pickup and fiddled with his hands, but his eyes remained alert. After a moment, he shrugged without looking up.

"Sometimes, I'm not sure myself."

At any other point Yuugi might have laughed, but he somehow figured that whatever muscles in his body that were required to laugh had already been frozen past the temperature of proper functioning. He rubbed his arms, even though it wasn't doing much good, and he cursed himself yet again for not deciding to just sleep in his day clothes instead of changing into thin pajamas.

Yuugi made yet another note to remind himself how it was that of the three of them, Malik still seemed to be doing the best, even though _he _was the one who had grown up in a country where the daily low probably hadn't hit freezing in centuries.

"Hey, I think I know this place."

Yuugi was hardly surprised when the voice that broke into the silence was once again Bakura-kun's. It wasn't as urgent this time, and Yuugi could give himself every reason to just ignore the question for half a minute until it was repeated, or just ignore it entirely. He liked Bakura-kun, but it was cold. And he was tired. And for some reason, the driver still hadn't turned his lights on …

"Bakura, you said that _six __times_ when we were in the woods."

He sat himself up as Malik's voice again shot into the silence, sarcasm dripping from it so thickly Yuugi could practically taste it.

Bakura-kun adjusted himself to sit properly and looked around again. "But I really do! I know this part of the highway!"

Malik groaned. "Bakura, we're freezing, we're tired, none of our brains are working right, we might as well just wait an—"

"The car!"

Yuugi didn't even think about the danger of it all before leaping up from his seat and leaning off the edge of the truck, so much that he found his hands gripping the icy metal as his balance threatened to fail him. He wobbled, wondering if Malik and Bakura-kun were even awake enough to notice and help him, before pulling back and pointing with a no-longer-shivering arm just ahead.

Just ahead, where, sitting quite contentedly off the edge of the highway, was a small silver car with a dent in the left side.

Malik sat up and shot the shyest look he had probably ever worn at Bakura-kun. "Heh …"

Bakura-kun paid him no notice, and leaned back against the edge of the truck with a sigh to rival all sighs, and wide brown eyes that stared at the car awaiting them like it was a mountain of never-ending cream puffs, complete with beverages and fancy little toothpicks.

"I don't think I've ever been so happy to see a car."

It was a small thing to outweigh all the insanity of the rest of the night. But it was enough for Yuugi. Enough for him to pull out energy he did not have and lean forward toward the front window of the truck, this time clutching the metal hard enough to burn his own fingers. He reached out a hand to knock or wave or in some way signal the driver.

And he fell back right on his backside when the truck jolted and stopped.

Something told him Malik wanted very much to snicker as he scrambled to adjust himself and rub his side where he had landed, but the confusion of the situation seemed to spread even to him. When Yuugi looked up Malik and Bakura-kun both blinked back at him, flicking eyes forward toward the driver that could not be seen through the foggy windows, then back to Yuugi and themselves.

Yuugi sat himself up and turned his head behind him. "How did he know that was our car?"

A pause. Heavy, quiet.

"It's the only car we've seen in … _forever.__" _Malik settled back into his seat and wrapped his arms around his knees. Yuugi couldn't tell if it was for warmth or just force of quirked his head. "Maybe he just guessed?"

Bakura-kun blinked. "I don't think we were driving for _that _long, Malik-kun."

"Like I said. Maybe he guessed."

Yuugi's brain might have had a million questions left, but his body had already grown far too frustrated to put up with his brain's uncertainty, and he found his legs carrying him out of the back of the truck, Malik and Bakura-kun close behind him. He didn't try to stop himself, and merely took control of his own actions long enough to feel the vague dizziness of being on solid ground once again, and to flick his eyes over to the little silver car in a final confirmation that it was the same car he had asked Honda-kun to lend them for the weekend.

Indeed, that little car was the most beautiful sight he had laid eyes on in a very long time.

He grinned, a tired sort of grin, and scrambled over toward the closed, foggy window of the passenger's seat of the truck.

"This is it, thank you so m—"

And Yuugi was left nearly thrown back on his butt when the truck raced off into the distance, zero to seventy in what seemed like two seconds flat, without the window rolling down or a single word spoken.

No comment from the estranged driver, and the headlights in the front still very definitely off.

The silence that Yuugi was beginning to grow so familiar with that he might as well have introduced himself, shook hands, and made friends with it fell upon them in the cold and the dark. The three boys stood by the side of the road long after the sounds of the truck had faded into the distance, and long after—if the truck _had_ been wearing lights—the headlights would have faded from view.

And it felt like nearly an eternity later when Malik flicked his eyes fairly obviously to the side to look at both of them out of the corner of his gaze. His eyebrows shifted.

"Knowing what you tend to run into, Bakura, that was a ghost."

Bakura-kun did nothing but continue to stare out into the distance, not even blinking at the craziness unfolding right before him.

He did not bother to respond.

"Come on," Yuugi broke into the almost-returning silence, a sigh escaping his lips without him even attempting to stop it. He started toward the front passenger door of the little silver car. "Let's go home."

* * *

><p>"You're joking."<p>

"No, seriously."

"That can_not_ have been true."

"Yes, it was."

"I have to go with these guys, even if I _do _sound like Kaiba. That's just _insane._"

"It's _true!_"

Usually, Yuugi would have taken a moment to stare when he, Bakura-kun, and Malik all shouted the insistence at the same time, but right now he was far too busy looking at the other three sitting across from them at the table with quirked eyebrows and blinking, frankly very disbelieving faces.

After all they had gone through, Yuugi had thought they would have no trouble believing what seemed to him a simple situation, however odd and complex it had felt at the time. Together, the four of them had been kidnapped, pulled into magical games in ancient Egypt, seen cards come to life, and been chased by boulders that turned out to be balloons with speakers inside. This was relatively commonplace, at least compared to that. And yet here they were, the six of them sitting together for a very late lunch—or perhaps early dinner—on Sunday afternoon. Yuugi, Malik, and Bakura-kun all safe from the cold and the craziness of their camping trip.

Not to mention without all the stuff they had yet to retrieve from the campsite.

Jounouchi-kun sipped on his soda. "So … you went out camping, then your tent was attacked by a bear, you wandered around for hours trying to find your car, then a guy in a truck you had never seen in your life randomly showed up and drove you there, then disappeared and you never saw him again?"

"Yeah." Malik nodded, almost as if he hadn't noticed that that sounded the least bit out of the ordinary. "That's just about it."

Jounouchi-kun looked at Honda-kun. Honda-kun looked at Anzu. Anzu looked back to Jounouchi-kun.

And in one second, all in tandem, even more strangely simultaneous than Yuugi's unintentional synchronization with Malik and Bakura-kun, the three of them burst out into hysterical laughter.

Yuugi clutched the wet surface of his water glass, and couldn't decide whether he was annoyed or just unsure how to feel in the first place. Now that he listened to it, it _did _sound a little crazy, and in the middle of the night, being as cold and hungry as they were, he supposed they were a little prone to hallucinations. But hallucinations, no matter what Kaiba-kun might have insisted, probably wouldn't be enough to make the three of them believe they were riding in a truck when they had actually been walking kilometers back toward the car.

Then again, that still wouldn't be much weirder than the guy in the truck.

Anzu was the first to compose herself, her cheeks now tinted pink like she had finally realized that she was laughing at three boys who were currently staring at her as plainly as ever. She looked back and forth between them, one by one, and finally settled on staring at Yuugi. He blinked at her and rested his cheeks in his palms. He quirked an eyebrow and gave a tiny smile in an expression he somehow suspected was new for someone like him.

She cleared her throat, and the last remnants of her amusement vanished, though Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun had yet to catch their breath. "Well, I guess it _might _have happened. I mean, Honda, weren't you and Otogi-kun rescued by that Shaadi guy during Battle City?"

Honda-kun nearly choked on his own chuckles and looked up.

"… I _think._" He adjusted himself in his seat and stared at the table. "And yeah, he was _kind_ of a ghost."

Jounouchi-kun snickered. "Honda, he was a ghost. My hand went right through him!"

"Maybe this man wasn't a ghost," Bakura-kun suggested, and Yuugi noticed that he had started fiddling with his fingers on the table. "But he knew more about us than we told him, and I swear I've never seen him before in my life!"

"Well, to be _fair,_ Bakura, you _might_ have met him, it might just not have been _you_ doing the meeting."

"The same might have happened with you, Malik-kun!"

"Oh, come on, the only time _he _ever showed up was on the blimp!"

"Enough!"

Bakura-kun and Malik spun their heads around to look Yuugi in the eyes. Yuugi scooted back, almost without realizing it, and the firm expression he hadn't even noticed had come to his face vanished in an instant. He swallowed and flicked his eyes back to the table.

He cleared his throat as he found his place again in his chair. "Maybe this is just one of those things we'll never have an answer to. There have been _plenty_ of those before, you know."

Though he couldn't look at himself, he imagined the tone of his face had gone darker, and he breathed in deeper a few times in an attempt to calm his rushing blood at the stares everyone was now giving him. If he hadn't known better—and this time, he really didn't—he would have said Jounouchi-kun almost looked pleased with his outburst. Honda-kun amused, and even Anzu a little satisfied that he had finally taken a stand.

It seemed like a minute full of nothing but dreaded silence before Jounouchi-kun chuckled and shook his head, his arms crossed over his chest and his head leaned back as far as his seat would allow. "All par for the course when you hang out with Yuugi, I guess."

"Or Bakura," Malik muttered.

"Or you!" Bakura-kun got so very close to shouting.

"Boys!"

Malik and Bakura-kun turned their heads, the blush that had formed on Bakura-kun's pale cheeks more evident and cherry red, and Malik wearing an expression that looked as if he couldn't decide whether to be confident and annoyed or blatantly guilty. Yuugi wanted so badly to giggle behind his hand, but he pursed his lips and looked at Anzu, scowling in her own personalized manner at the feuding duo on the other side of the table.

She sighed and put a hand to her head. "Does anyone actually want to order something? If you want a hot drink, I'll pay."

Honda-kun spun around. "Really?"

"For _them!_"

If it hadn't been for the glare on Anzu's face that even Yuugi found frightening from a distance, he would have laughed out loud at the three-year-old pouts poking out on Jounouchi-kun's and Honda-kun's lips.

Malik leaned against his forearms on the table and nodded. "A hot chocolate would be great, thanks."

Bakura-kun sighed, his lips quirking into a smile much more characteristic of his usual demeanor.

"Tea, please. … if you don't mind, Anzu-chan."

Anzu's glares and scowls faded enough to make the entire table seem to breathe a sigh of relief. Her lips curled into a small grin. "Not at all, Bakura-kun. Hot chocolate okay for you, Yuugi?"

Yuugi just smiled and nodded as she raised a hand to signal the passing waiter.

He leaned back in his chair as the world around him turned just as it always did, as Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun snorted so hard when Malik got hot chocolate all around his mouth that they nearly choked on the water Anzu had ordered for them. He watched his friends, all of them, happy and safe and _here_, and he let out a long sigh as he let himself settle into the peace.

And he imagined, somewhere he did not yet know, an ancient pharaoh was probably laughing his head off at the weirdness in their lives that never seemed to want to let them be.

* * *

><p>Malik had finally gotten around to calling Ishizu-san after they left the restaurant. He had apparently decided to save the story for when he got home, or perhaps just avoid telling it at all. Ishizu-san probably would have believed almost anything, but given the reactions they had just gained from three of the most understanding people Yuugi knew, he suspected Malik wasn't quite ready to risk being laughed at again.<p>

His plane ride home was still scheduled for the following morning, and Yuugi didn't hesitate to offer up a futon in their living room for him to use for the night, as he had no other place to stay and not nearly enough money for a hotel—at least not enough _Japanese _money, as Yuugi had seen at least a few bills of Egyptian currency stuffed in an outside pocket of his suitcase.

And granted, that suitcase was currently somewhere in the woods, likely being devoured by a large bear.

Yuugi was reminded very quickly, though, of the fact that Malik was not entirely used to being a houseguest. It had crossed his mind to ask him if he had ever stayed with someone who wasn't an immediate relative—save last night when they had all collapsed on Bakura-kun's couch, slumped on top of one another, simply out of lack of anywhere else to sleep—but he somehow thought he wouldn't like the answer. And though he wanted so badly to make some comment on improvement of manners, he didn't.

And besides, it wasn't all _that _bad that within the first half hour after arriving, Malik had flopped down on the couch in front of the TV, snacking on anything and everything he could pull from the fridge, absorbed in his favorite shows as if he had forgotten that most of the channels he got back in Egypt didn't air in Japan.

He stayed like that for most of the early evening, and Yuugi said nothing about it. He sat on one of the other chairs or gathered more snacks or even went up to his room and looked through his deck or solved a Rubik's Cube over and over again. Malik didn't seem to notice as he came and went, as he put more snacks on the little table in front of the couch, or as he took his place in a chairs and tried to enjoy whatever it was Malik was watching.

Malik was so absorbed in his own little world that he didn't even seem to notice late that evening when the doorbell rang.

Yuugi sighed, got to his feet, and scurried through the living room to the side door of the house.

He opened the door, that welcoming smile plastered on his face, and blinked at the thick mess of white hair and big brown eyes that popped into his gaze.

"Bakura-kun?"

Bakura-kun blinked and smiled, a smile that could hardly be defined as happy or even just nervous. He raised a bare hand, fingers pink and stiff. "Hi, Yuugi-kun."

Yuugi looked him up and down as if he hadn't seen him in days, rather than not having seen him for just a few hours since earlier that same day. Indeed, his clothes looked fresher and cleaner than the ones he had thrown on the night before when they arrived at his apartment. It was hard to tell, though, over the thick coat he had hugged around his body and the hat he had finally elected to put on his head.

It seemed nearly a minute later when Yuugi jumped.

"Come in, come in! You look freezing out there …"

Bakura-kun chuckled in that high-pitched, anxious sort of way that somehow made Yuugi more comfortable. It may have been shy, but it was much more like him. Much more like the well-mannered, sweet boy who hid in the back of the classroom as if he had done something wrong. The selfless boy who would have sacrificed himself in an instant to stop the spirit in his Ring from causing any more harm. The Bakura Ryou-kun he had always been deep down, even if Yuugi was only just now really getting to know him.

Yuugi opened the door in full, and Bakura-kun nodded his thanks as he stepped in. Every motion was both jerky and hesitant, slipping off his shoes and replacing him with the dark green house slippers Yuugi suspected had last been worn by Jounouchi-kun, given that they had been tossed to the side instead of placed in a row with the others.

He hung his thick blue coat and green knitted hat in the hall closet, still shivering with his hands clutching his arms, and nodded once more to Yuugi as Yuugi smiled and led him back to the living room door.

After all they had been through over the weekend, Yuugi had at least temporarily lost most of his sense of manners. Of course, he had been as understanding as he could from the beginning, given that Malik came from a completely different country and culture, and the camping trip fiasco had only served to strengthen his internal decision that he could let just about anything slide.

But even for someone as naturally forgiving as Yuugi, walking in to find the houseguest you had only just allowed to stay with you for the night sitting on the couch, flicking between channels by the remote in his hand, socked feet resting on the little table in front of him like there was nothing unusual about it at all.

Yuugi flinched, and Malik turned his head, only to break into a grin.

"Bakura!" Malik slipped his feet off of the table and down to the ground before Yuugi had the chance to open his mouth. He quirked his head. "I didn't think I'd be seeing you again before I left."

Bakura-kun chuckled that high-pitched chuckle that was usually accompanied by a blush and his hand rubbing the back of his head. "Actually, Malik-kun, Yuugi-kun, I was thinking … Since we didn't get to actually _have _our camping trip …"

"Well, we _did, _it just happened to involve freezing weather, ghosts driving trucks, and huge bears."

Yuugi turned his eyes at Malik's comment, and Bakura-kun gave a sheepish smile and nod.

"Well, I was thinking …" He fidgeted one last time, feet shifting in his house slippers and teeth clearly biting the inside of his lip. "Maybe we could finish up our camping trip here."

"Here?" Malik repeated. He blinked, once, two more times, and sat in full on the couch.

Yuugi furrowed his brow. "But we're not outside …"

Bakura-kun smiled. It wasn't a big smile, or a certain one. It almost reminded Yuugi of the smile he had worn in the doorway. Nervous, unsure of what was to happen next, or if what he was doing was the right course of action. But he stood tall and as confident as his gentle demeanor would allow, and he smiled like it was the only thing he knew.

"That doesn't matter!" His teeth showed as his smile turned anxious. "We can just … pretend?"

The silence fell over the group once more. Not much like the silences they had experienced in the past day or two. Not a silence of dread or fear or worry. Just a silence, where all three of them looked at one another, and the only thing any of them could really recognize was the hesitant smile of Bakura-kun standing still closer to the door.

Yuugi blinked, very slow, and though he did not grin, he met Bakura-kun's eyes in full.

"I think we've got a tent in one of the storage closets."

Malik pushed himself to stand from the couch, and turned his eyes back and forth between them. "And I saw some marshmallows in the pantry."

Bakura-kun looked at Malik, then at Yuugi. And in those big brown eyes, Yuugi saw a strange sort of light that was both incredibly familiar and unbelievably new. If he looked long enough, he almost thought he could see a kind of quiet smile shimmering in the back of those eyes. Uncertain. Peeking around the edge of the doorway, looking to see if it was safe to come out.

His lips began to twitch into a grin that shone like the glow in his eyes. "If we light a few candles, we can roast them … and maybe have some real dinner, too."

And that grin stretched and grew as it was met with two smiles and nods in return.

It was not the sort of wondrous scene some might have imagined. It certainly wasn't the sort of thing Yuugi had pictured, if he had ever thought of the future the three of them had in store once they were left like this. It was quiet. All except for the laughter when Malik pulled three cans of expired soup out of the cabinets and suggested a grand feast, the shrieks and squeals when the lighters kept nearly burning their fingers, and the boisterous shouts and words as they tried with all their might to figure out how far they had to move the furniture to make the whole tent fit in the living room.

There was no perfection, nor did the whole scene glow from a sort of inherent essence. It was unsure and wobbly, like a toddler taking its first careful steps with no one there to catch him if he falls. Yuugi's mother walked in twice on them with the tent and the marshmallows roasted over candles and stared with no words to describe the look in her eyes, and Jii-chan just laughed loud enough to bring down the house every time he passed by the door.

In the cold of the night, they pulled in spare blankets from the closet and gathered around the campfire made of candles balanced on an old plate inside the tent, and told scary stories that made each other laugh instead of scream, except when Bakura-kun took the stage and told stories worthy of their own horror films. They scarfed down an entire bag of marshmallows by eleven, and by midnight had eaten the entire secret stash of candy kept in the bottom drawer in the kitchen under the family photos, and they never did get anything of substance to eat.

The clock ticked, and the night wore on, as the lights of the outside and of the rest of house faded to leave just the three boys with their candles and their laughter and smiles. With a light in their eyes Yuugi couldn't have imagined if he had tried. The same light he could feel beginning to spark within himself.

And though he knew it was probably just a feeling, just a trick of his mind, he almost felt as though there was another laughing with them somewhere far off in the distance. Someone watching to see three halves, three wholes, huddled together in the dead of night, making the darkness shimmer with their own bright glow.

Yuugi smiled, and this time, it did not even cross his mind to question whether someone in the distance, someone glowing in deep his own heart, was smiling, too.


End file.
